Alabama men’s tennis went 4-1 over its last 5 matches, improving its overall record to 7-7 and securing its first conference win of the season in the process.
Just two days removed from its matchup against No. 3 Texas, the Crimson Tide faced another formidable conference foe in LSU on Monday. The Tigers struck first, clinching a tightly-contested doubles point in a deciding tiebreak at No. 2 doubles. The Aussie duo of Brendan Loh and Rowan Hazratwala secured a 6-3 win at the No. 3 spot, their first-ever win as a pair.
Alabama struggled to find momentum in singles play, losing in straight sets on four out of six courts. Freshman Vit Kalina avoided a sweep in an exhilarating 3-6, 7-5, 14-12 victory on Court 3 over LSU’s Enzo Kohlmann. Freshman Jacob Olar also battled in his match, coming up just short (7-10) in a match tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets.
Echoing his optimism from the Texas match, head coach George Husack once again praised the fight and progress of his inexperienced team.
“So a challenging weekend against a pair of top-five teams but plenty learned to take forward into next weekend,” he said.
On Friday, Alabama got back into the win column in a dominant fashion, sweeping its doubleheader against Tennessee State.
Across the two matches, all three doubles teams secured at least one win, with No. 1 doubles — Kalina and Andrii Zimnokh — and No. 2 doubles — Olar and Matic Kriznik — finishing undefeated on the day.
In singles, Alabama suffocated the Tigers, dropping just one set total throughout the afternoon. Senior Carlos Gimenez Perez captured the most notable victory of the day, as he trounced TSU’s Alexander Adamec 6-0, 6-0 in the first match. Kalina and Kriznik each pulled out two comfortable wins of their own.
“Full team effort tonight. Noticeable areas of improvement after a productive week of practice,” Husack said.
The team carried that momentum into Sunday’s doubleheader, clinching its first conference win of the season over No. 30 Arkansas.
The Razorbacks took an early lead, grabbing the doubles point in a deciding 7-5 win at No. 1 doubles after the other two courts had been split. Loh and Hazratwala won 6-2 at the No. 3 spot, improving the pair’s season record to 3-0.
Following a quick loss by Olar, Alabama won three consecutive matches on Courts 2, 6 and 5, all in straight sets. They were the second conference wins of the season for Kalina and freshman Yoshka Sborowsky, and the first for Perez.
Arkansas forced a deciding match when Zimnokh fell to the powerful serve and groundstrokes of Jakub Vrba, the No. 18-ranked singles player in the country, 6-7, 2-6.
Tied at 3-3, the match came down to Kriznik at No. 3 singles, who, after a frustrating first set, found his rhythm from the baseline and cruised to a 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 win as he wore down Arkansas’ Ben Weintraub.
Just an hour later, the Crimson Tide capped off seven days of matches with a 4-0 dismantling of Alcorn State.
A pair of 6-2 wins at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles gave the team an early 1-0 lead.
Looking to secure the team’s second win of the day, Zimnokh, Sborowsky and Loh all won in dominant, straight-set fashion on Courts 1, 4 and 6 to solidify a sweep of the Braves. Loh dropped zero games across both sets, and Sborowsky’s 6-1, 6-1 victory made him the only Alabama player to go 2-0 in singles on Sunday.
Alabama will look to continue its winning streak against Georgia in its first conference road match of the season. The match is set for Friday at 4:30 p.m. CT.
